The Rudolf Steiner Archive

My dear Theosophical friends! The Theosophical movement does not want to create a sect, it does not want to be a sectarian movement, it does not want to found any new religious system, nor does it want to oblige anyone to follow certain dogmas or doctrines, nor does it even want to cause anyone to believe in such doctrines. All the teachings that we spread and represent are only a means to deepen life itself.

Many misconceptions about the theosophical movement have been spread. It is believed that Theosophy is a doctrine, a system of dogmas, a philosophy, a religion, and on the basis of such views, some believe that they will be alienated from their worldview if they devote themselves to Theosophy. This is not the case, and it is not in the plan of those who brought the theosophical movement into being. On the contrary, the theosophical movement is supposed to be one that makes it possible to fully understand what in life is called science or religion, depending on the circumstances into which one is born and which one recognizes as one's own. Just as we survey the phenomena of nature and learn to understand them only by delving more deeply into them, so we also learn about the phenomena of human life only by delving more deeply into them. The various religious systems, the various scientific systems and also the various philosophical worldviews are phenomena of human spiritual life. They show man their exterior. The theosophical movement wants to lead people deeper into the essence of the actual spiritual phenomena. Therefore, no one should believe that they will be estranged from their religious beliefs or scientific convictions if they become Theosophists. Our Theosophical Society is also active in India, and the Indian Brahmins have found that the old depth of their own ancient wisdom has been restored to them through the theosophical movement. At the Congress of Religions in Chicago, the Indian Brahmin Chakravarti emphasized that his people, like other peoples, had fallen into materialism, had strayed from the high spiritual world view that came from the ancient rishis, and that the theosophical movement, by delving into this ancient wisdom, has taught the Indian people again the infinite depth that is revealed when the Hindu or Buddhist religious system is understood in its true essence and not merely on the surface.

Likewise, we can penetrate deeper and deeper into that mighty world view system that we know as the ancient Hebrew system, as that of the ancient Jews. I would like to say that this wisdom is written down in the Old Testament only in broken rays. But the Old Testament nevertheless reveals itself to those who delve into it with a theosophical understanding as a wisdom of extraordinary depth.

Above all, I would like to emphasize that Christianity, the Christian worldview itself, can be fully understood and explored through the theosophical method, through the theosophical life. This Christianity, which for centuries has been the one that has shown countless people the way to their highest goal, this Christianity, which today is still for countless people what they seek in life, what comforts them in death, we certainly understand this Christianity too, when we get to know it as it is presented to us through the various means of the different churches. But, my dear Theosophical friends, Christianity is something that one can delve into and delve into more and more, and each degree of delving always brings us teachings of infinite depth from within Christianity itself. There is no degree of delving that does not bring us ever new things from the depths from which the greatest Christian wisdom springs.

Above all, no one needs to become estranged from his Christianity by becoming a theosophist. Today, for those who might be led astray from Christianity by modern science – by the scientific endeavors of the present and also by the criticism that theological science itself has practiced on this Christianity – today the way to understand Christian truths again is solely and exclusively the theosophical one.

If we look back to the Middle Ages – no one can conjure up the Middle Ages again – but if we look at it psychologically, but not externally like today's psychology, then we will see what passed through the souls of people back then, then we understand what kind of spirituality passed through the souls of people back then, then we understand we realize that they did not have Christian dogmas, but that they more or less sensed what had been expressed by the Christian mystics – they sensed something of the glimmering of the Christ-being, as expressed in the saying of Angelus Silesius: “And if Christ were born a thousand times in Bethlehem and not in you, you would be lost forever.” — It is the same with Meister Eckhart when he demands that man should have experienced the nature of Christ within himself, because only then can he understand what the event in Palestine really means.

For centuries, people have had their emotional and spiritual guidance for experiencing the Christian essence in the Gospel of John, in the Gospel that we call the fourth, in the Gospel that which adheres – seemingly rigidly from today's point of view – to the fundamental Christian truth that the great teacher who once walked in Palestine – Christ Jesus – was the true God-man, that in him the divine principle of our universe became flesh. Today, the saying at the beginning of the Gospel of John is criticized above all from the point of view of so-called man. The enlightened person can hardly connect any meaning with the opening words of the Gospel of John. He does not know what it is supposed to mean: the word - the word that is God at the same time.

Go where the leaders of humanity were, and you will find that the pinnacle of effectiveness was spent understanding, grasping what it means: the Christ has come into the world. That was the yearning of the researchers, to understand what lies in these words. Then, in the times when it was taken for granted that a Christ had lived, that a Christ had been working through the centuries, medieval theology also believed in it, and the theologians did not even remotely think of doubting the true nature of the real Jesus. They all endeavored to build extensive scientific systems that contained the revealed truths, which were simply accepted as they were and as they were prescribed by the church; they were content with interpreting them.

We have the so-called period of scholasticism and, in a slightly different form, mysticism. We have the time when it was established that a Christian can only be a Christian by feeling connected, feeling a living connection with Christ Jesus. Those who sought to reach the summit of the spirit strove to awaken the Christ within themselves, the life and the essence. They lived the profound saying of Goethe, understood in that time:

If the eye were not sunlike,
The sun could never behold it.
If the God-owning power did not lie in us,
How could we delight in the divine?

The spiritual eye must first be made capable of finding God in the outer world. At that time no one would have felt entitled to make statements about the historical Christ Jesus without first having understood the nature of the Christ, without having studied Christology. Just as today no one feels called upon to judge about lightning and thunder without having studied physics, so at that time no one felt called upon to judge about Christology without having studied it.

Something else came up that ties in with the name of the Rosicrucians. This movement is similar to Theosophy. It strove to understand the various religions, but especially Christianity, in their depths. These Rosicrucians differ from us in that we appear openly before the people and communicate to them what we have learned ourselves, while the Rosicrucians worked in secret. But what they wanted to achieve was to make people understand what Christology is. They were inwardly convinced and knew that one can comprehend the phenomena only when one has experienced within oneself the nature of Christ Jesus.

I would like to emphasize one fact of the Rosicrucian movement. Every Rosicrucian had those who wished to become disciples practise one thing above all others. He demanded of the external disciple, who had yet to enter the sanctuary and who only wanted to approach the teachings within the Rosicrucian sanctuary, that he inwardly absorb the Gospel of John, chapter 13. This was the basic principle of this occult training. And anyone who had emerged from the Rosicrucian movement and tried to grasp everything that was there would experience something that not everyone can experience when they delve into the Gospel of John in the sense of what we call “meditation”. They experience a multitude of occult powers, so that the one who places himself under the influence of these sentences undergoes a metamorphosis. He experiences within himself a repetition of the mystery that Jesus exemplified for us. You can relive the life of Jesus point by point, from the washing of the feet to the crucifixion and resurrection, on the basis of the Gospel of John - not through the concepts that are there, but through the occult forces hidden in the concepts.

Just as something cannot be made clear by mere theory, so the Rosicrucians could not merely expound it to anyone. They allowed their disciples to experience it. And there were not a few such disciples in the nineteenth century who experienced real wounds on themselves.

Then there came a time when they knew that these things were more than abstract symbols, that they were to be taken literally. Before one has realized this, one does not know what this gospel is about, one does not know what is hidden in it. So those who wanted to lead their students to Christianity through the occult tried to do so through the Gospel of John. But at the same time they were convinced that the one who is gifted – that is, the one who has developed the corresponding power – is able to release forces in his community when he speaks, even if the community is unaware of it. Public preaching was based on this. In the churches of the Middle Ages, there was still some understanding of this occult side. But even in more recent times, there was still a magical, occult power in the Gospel of John. It was not for nothing that Luther made the Gospel of John his favorite gospel. He knew what it meant, even if he and his friends were not all occultists. But every person experienced a purification that led him to an understanding when he lived with a chapter, so that he sought to live through sentence after sentence, that he did not dwell on a verse for days but for weeks and months, began to love it, began to live with it, so that it filled his whole being without him having to neglect the duties of his outer life.

In the course of modern development, this has changed. Without saying anything against the modern heads of the church, it must be emphasized that the relationship of the religious person to the religious leader has become essentially different in modern times. Look at the figures [of religious leaders] in the Middle Ages up to our century: they were filled with true faith and with sacred secrets and views; they taught through inner experiences. The people who listened to them knew that someone was speaking who spoke from deep knowledge. They were not people who believed in authority. They sensed that something was alive within the religious leader, which flowed through his words, but which cannot be expressed in an abstract and intellectual way. It was more in the words of community life.

This changed in more recent times. The whole way of looking at the world became different. People no longer understood anything like what I said about the Gospel of John today; they no longer knew that there were hidden sides to the gospel. More and more, the Gospels were taken as a scientific object, as a pure object of methodical, historical research. And so, over time, we see a theology emerging that offers a truly tragic history with its research into the Gospels.

Now let me give a brief overview of what today's theology knows about the value and truth of the Gospels. What is taught at the university today wants to be a science like any other. It is no longer the case, as it was even a hundred years ago, when a Schleiermacher still spoke to the educated with the full power of the orator. Today, the word of the gospel is often used for money, but the actual leaders have subjected the gospel to a theology, to a science, which has become tragically peculiar to the gospel.

The first thing to be dropped is precisely this Gospel of John. You all know that a Christian learns about the founder of his religion, about the one from whom the teaching originated, about the Christ himself, through the Gospels. A Christian lets the Gospels work on him. In the Gospels, he is told about the teachings of Christ Jesus, about the teachings and deeds. Through the centuries, what has been told has been accepted because one was convinced of the actual fact that Jesus lived. No value was placed on whether or not they [the Gospels] contradict each other in detail; one sought to deepen one through the other. Whatever they may have done in different ways, the focus was still on the only figure of this God-man. And the Gospels were suitable for leading to this. The wording of the Gospels was not important. It was only in the nineteenth century that the Gospel was examined under the microscope, as is the case with every other work of man. The first question the learned theologians asked themselves was: To what extent can the Gospels be records of the Jesus who lived in Palestine? Are they records that prove the accuracy of the teachings? The objective reality of Jesus of Nazareth was the basis for the research of the nineteenth century. Now the question arose: Can the Gospels be historical records like other historical records? More and more it has been shown that the Gospels were written when Christianity had already begun. No scholar today would take the position that they were written in the first century of our era. It has been found that they were written only later.

The question that interests us most is this: if you compare the gospels and see that the individual evangelists directly contradict each other in their statements, how can we understand these statements as a record of Jesus? What can we do with it when Mark speaks differently than John and Matthew, differently than Mark and Luke? As it became more and more apparent that the gospels contradict each other, it became important to examine whether other testimonies, testimonies and reports from historians, could be found. The result was – as is well known – that no such documents exist. Neither the information Josephus gives us nor that which Tacitus gives us confirms anything about a Jesus of Nazareth.

Protestant theology places little value on Christian tradition. But it is there. And Irenaeus emphasizes that he had known apostles who had known the Lord. But these are traditions that cannot be considered historical. In short, all we have to shape a biography of Jesus are the Gospels. So one had to ask oneself: “What do the Gospels testify to?” Because everything else was found to be worthless.

The next realization was that the Gospel of John reports something quite different in many ways than the other three Gospels. They know that they are called “after” Matthew, “after” Mark, “after” Luke and “after” John. Above all, more and more emphasis was placed on the fact that the image of Jesus of Nazareth, as it emerges from the Gospel of John, is different from that of the other evangelists. Here are some basic features: the Jesus of John's Gospel is understood as God made man. He is the one who does things that can only flow from divine power itself. These are miracles of omnipotence. This gives a different picture than the other evangelists. It gives the picture that he portrayed Jesus as the one who feels within himself that he is God, that he is the God who came into the world to hold people fast to this belief in God.

The gospel of John also differs from the other gospels in its external appearance. We are never told that the mother of Jesus and the disciples were standing at the cross. There are many other points in which it radically differs from the others. That is why it was decided to exclude the gospel of John when it came to the biography of Jesus. The gospel of John is considered to be a confessional writing that cannot claim to be anything other than a hymn-like song. For modern theology, the gospel of John is not considered a historical document. Matthew, Mark and Luke show more agreement among themselves than these three gospels show with the gospel of John. These three gospels are called the synoptic gospels and their authors the synoptics. What is in Mark is to a high degree in all three synoptic gospels. Matthew is therefore the one that could be deleted, and you would find everything in Mark and Luke again. There is nothing in Mark that is not also in Matthew and Luke. Therefore, the gospel of Mark is considered the original. It is also written in very old Greek. Therefore, the researchers pointed out that the Gospel of Mark should be regarded as the first. So the Gospel of Mark was accepted as the first, and the others accordingly took from what Mark said. In Matthew and Luke, there are elements that are not in Mark, so-called “words of the Lord, core sayings, because they come from Christ Jesus. They agree in Matthew and Luke. Since they agree, one can only assume that they come from the same source. These words of the Lord are said to be based on a Greek source, a collection of wisdom proverbs from which they were inserted into what they copied from Mark. The agreement between Matthew and Luke is great, but the layout is quite different. So they could not have copied from each other, but they could have had a common collection of sayings as a basis.

So what do we have? First, the Gospel of Mark, which mainly tells of the deeds of Jesus, starting with the baptism. Second, the Gospel of Matthew and third, the Gospel of Luke. The corresponding words of the Lord were always added to the deeds. But then there is something special about each of the two, Matthew and Luke, that is not found in any of the others. Matthew has insertions that have a distinctly Jewish character. It is this that Matthew has for himself, so that it is to be regarded as a gospel that was intended for the Jewish community. Luke wrote more for others, namely for the poor and the oppressed. Therefore, the entire Gospel of Luke, as far as the words of the Lord and the material of Mark are not considered, gives the impression that it was written for the poor and from a heart full of mercy.

Theology has therefore created strange images. First, that the Gospel of John is out of the question altogether; then, that Matthew and Luke each have something special, and that each can be decisive to a certain extent for the true facts of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. But where do the words of the Lord come from? There must have been a Greek collection of sayings that were added to the Gospels. Historical research cannot determine the question of where they come from. It is impossible for it to say where this collection of sayings comes from. So we are led back to Mark again. So you have the Gospel of Mark and then the collection of sayings. As for what Matthew and Luke have to say, it could be said that it goes back to Jesus and is a retelling of his deeds, but we cannot prove it. It may be based on true facts, but that is not necessarily the case. Similarly, what is referred to as the words of the Lord may go back to Jesus, but we do not know. And so we are led back to the Gospel of Mark. It recounts deeds, but they are of a peculiar kind. What does modern theology say about this? It says: Let us examine the facts. We find that Mark narrates in a way that someone would have narrated if they had heard it themselves or been an eyewitness. Mark speaks of a work. But then he strings the things together in such a way that this stringing together of the individual facts is an artistic composition. That he has strung the facts together in the way he could best put them together, much like a poet puts the details together to form a whole work. The story itself is the composition of Mark – the facts could be tradition. But they are told in such a way that they have a very general character. – Mark is telling facts that have a general character. We see, then, that the composition is the work of Mark. But the facts are such that he says, for example, “Christ did this or that,” but in such a way that only three or four disciples see it and are not allowed to share it. It is difficult to get the Jews to believe in Jesus. Therefore, Mark seeks to frame the work in such a way that it became understandable to Christians why the Jews found it so difficult to believe in Jesus.

We find two things – so the modern theologian says: firstly, that Jesus is not understood. And this is explained by the fact that Mark makes it difficult for the Jews to understand Jesus. When Jesus performs miracles, he forbids those who have seen it to tell it. The modern theologian is baffled by this. The modern theologian only admits: There must have been some secret tradition here, but it only existed between Jesus and his chosen ones. The modern theologian cannot do anything with this.

We have a tradition that Mark the Evangelist was a disciple of Peter, who recorded what Peter said. There is no doubt that Peter did not write, but that he generally taught Jesus' doctrine and particularly emphasized soaring above earthly facts, so that the copyists were unable to describe anything local. This leads us to a later time when the gospel of Mark was written. A long span of time separates us from the oldest gospel, from the real Jesus. We do not know what we can deduce from the original gospel about the Jesus of Nazareth. We cannot construct a biography of Jesus' life from it.

The only thing that theology believes is to gain a clue to an oldest piece of the Gospel of Mark. This is a passage contained in the 13th chapter:

But when they lead you and deliver you up, do not worry about what you are to say, or how you are to defend yourselves. But whatever is given you at the time, that speak. For it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.

And brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father child; and children shall rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death.

And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

But when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing where it should not (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. And let him that is in the house not come down into the street, neither enter into his house, to take any thing out of his house. And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment. [Mk 13,11-16]

From this point, modern theology believes that it could have been written immediately under the impression of the impending destruction of Jerusalem. There must be something here that is old, so old that we could place it in the time before the destruction of Jerusalem. It is said to have been a pamphlet, a flyer, to warn people and tell them how to behave when this event occurred. Mark may have used this flyer and incorporated it into his gospel.

Yet another passage is of particular importance to the modern theologian. This is a passage in Luke, chapter 11, verse 48:

Thus ye bear witness and consent to the deeds of your fathers: for they killed them, and ye build their tombs.

If you read this passage in Matthew, chapter 10, verse 15, the comparison is very interesting:

Truly I say to you, it will be more bearable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that city.

In Matthew it is a saying of Jesus, in Luke it is a quotation. Therefore, the wisdom of God is speaking. The latter must therefore come from a source that is called the “wisdom of God.” Theology assumes that it was a collection of sayings, a collection of wisdom proverbs from which the theologian quoted and taught by saying, “Thus speaks the wisdom of God.” Matthew does things differently. The so-called words of the Lord are traced back to the collection of sayings by modern theologians.

Take a rough overview of the sketchiness that is necessary and compare it with what remains of scholarly gospel research. – Nothing remains. The Gospel of John is eliminated, Matthew and Luke are traced back to the collection of sayings. The collection of sayings can be traced back to Greek sources and cannot be followed further; we lose the thread. Mark can only have been written long after Jesus. Therefore, the modern theologian says: We cannot gain anything from the gospel. We cannot gain a biography of Jesus, we cannot gain what Jesus taught, we cannot gain what he taught about the intermediate court and the kingdom of God. Modern people say that the gospels tell us nothing about any of this. And what they tell us cannot be decisive in the sense of materialistic science.

I call this research into the Gospels a tragic story. You see, you have measured the Gospel by the standards of external science, and now the whole truth - as a result of research - is not there.

This indicates a very different point of view today between the believer and the theologian than was previously the case. In the past, the believer looked up to the theologian, who only proclaimed the truth of the Gospels. He was the authority. Even Harnack's book, which caused such a stir, is based on this modern theology. Today, believers face the theologian who does not know what is in the words of the Gospels, but can only say: I am unable to say scientifically what the founder of Christianity taught, whether he lived at all, and so on. - Science has produced a completely negative result in this direction. From this you can see that it is quite difficult for those who rely on Christianity [of the theologians] to build on it. If you believe the theologians whose science says that, you may begin to waver.

So it must be considered a new source of wisdom, hypothetically, when the theosophical movement now again delves into the Gospel of John and tries to bring the Gospel of John back to true understanding. The theosophical movement does not depend on riding Buddhist dogmas forever. They are only means, dogma is only a means. Today a movement is being born out of the bosom of the Theosophical Society that will bring a true understanding of Christianity, of the gospel hidden in the gospels, which is not understood in the ordinary sense.

Those who have experience may speak about it. I myself can hint at it with a few words, by saying that I have titled my new book “Christianity as a Mystical Fact”. I have not written this book from historical sources, I have deliberately written it without any historical source. I have left the historical sources alone and relied only on the occult sources. This book is written from the Akasha Chronicle, one might say. If you look at things from the point of view that Annie Besant has adopted in the book 'Esoteric Christianity' and that I have adopted in the book 'Christianity as Mystical Fact', then things take on a completely different effect. Next time I will show you what a completely different picture we get. This science will lead us from a different point of view to the greatest possible depth, to the revival of Christian truth. A parallel current is striving for this revival, and it is first of all the revival of the Gospel of John that is at stake. These great words, with which I would like to conclude today – in a translation that is reasonably accurate – will be understood again next time, when I will start from them again.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

In this was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it.

There came a man sent from God, whose name was John.

He came for a witness, to bear witness about

the Light, that through him all might believe.

He was not the Light, but a witness of the Light.

The true Light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

It was in the world, and the world was made through it, yet the world did not recognize it.

It came to the individual people [up to the I-people], but the individual people [I-people] did not accept it. But those who accepted him [it] could reveal themselves as children of God through him.

Those who trusted in his name were not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of human will, but of God.

And we have heard his teaching; the teaching of the only son of the Father, full of devotion and truth.

Those who understand these words correctly will see that research can only find the right word from this understanding. One should not find fault with the word. And we want to understand this word again, the greatest word:

And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us.

Eight days ago, I took the liberty of presenting the results of the theological research into the life of Jesus in outline, and we saw that this research, based on the study of historical monuments, petered out into the unknown, leading us to a period of time that was very distant and later than the assumed lifetime of the founder of Christianity. Thus it has been shown to us that historical, physical research based on literal scholarship is incapable of shedding light on the facts surrounding the founding of Christianity.

Today I would like to present the results of occult research to you as a supplement to this, even in outline, and I note that these results are facts for those who are able to examine them, but that they can only be examined with specially trained abilities, abilities that not everyone has, and that can therefore easily be doubted. What is to be said about this is not taught only today. What I have to say has been taught in the occult schools of all times since the founding of Christianity and most vividly in the first centuries of Christianity. The teachers have spoken not literally, but faithfully in the sense in which we want to look at the testimony of the Gospel of John from the occult point of view. The learned theologian Bunsen has already said that Christianity stands and falls with the Gospel of John. And we have seen that literal scholarship has first excluded the Gospel of John and does not want to accept it.

What I have to say has already been taught in the schools of the first Christian centuries from the same point of view, on the basis of the so-called occult or secret methods. We should not be surprised if those who want to prove the truth of Christianity from the scriptures, from what has remained, if they want to prove this truth historically, cannot arrive at any real result, just as, on the other hand, even today the occultist is not able to put down in writing the most important thing he has to say. It is the same today. Not the evangelists, nor their successors, were able to communicate the most important thing. But in the occult schools the methods had been preserved by which these truths could be found; they were partially continued, reproduced. These truths have been partially 'shown' to the students of the occult schools. I say 'shown', not 'taught'. Anyone who wants to talk about such truths must have seen them as fact.

Even in the schools of Origen in Asia, three stages of ascent to occult knowledge were recognized. These were designated by the three words: purification, enlightenment and initiation. Those who had attained the first stage of discipleship, the stage of purification, could see how historical events unfolded. They had what is known as the historical explanation of Christianity. Those who had progressed further, who had reached the stage of enlightenment, could see what Origen called the wisdom explanations, which are based on the dissemination of moral truth. And those who had reached the stage of initiation could achieve what is known as the typical foundation of Christianity.

Once we have recognized this, we can find all of this in the scriptures. Anyone who has climbed the step of purification, who is no longer able to speak from his point of view, from his personal opinion, who completely withdraws what he wants, what his personal opinion is, and merely makes himself the mouthpiece of the one who speaks to him in the astral world, is able to see the course of history even without external historical monuments. This is the so-called seeing in the astral world, a seeing that is quite different from seeing with physical eyes. In this astral world, we receive images of all events as reflections, not in reality. These images of the astral world of the past are essentially different from the images of the physical world. They have life and act themselves, they are mobile, so that in this way one sees history unfolding in the astral world in active action. Those who have reached the level of purification see, as it were, only the mirror images of the true inner events. Only those who have reached the second stage, the stage of enlightenment, see further. They see the thoughts of the people, of which they were inspired after seeing them in the image. And if someone rises to the stage of initiation, then he sees an even higher world, then he recognizes the intentions that prevail in the history through the incarnation of the great individualities themselves.

These are the three steps that the initiate has to climb, and of which one can also get a kind of historical reflection by reading what Gregorios Thaumaturgos says about his teacher Origines. What he says is a description written with a higher enthusiasm for what Origines taught him. What they have written can be taken as the words of one of those Christian writers of the third century, such as Clement of Alexandria, who says: “I know well that the writing of my memoirs is weak compared to the grace that I was honored to hear; but it will be a memory for him whom the Thyrsus met.” Every occultist knows how to interpret the term “Thyrsus”. Every occultist knows the instrument; every occultist knows that the truth was handed down orally from person to person, and that the deepest things were not recorded in the scriptures. This may become completely clear to you when I say that the ultimate truths were not written down in what they wrote; so of course they cannot be found in them.

I have entitled my book “Christianity as Mystical Fact”. The title was not chosen at random. Every word is important. It is not merely the mystical content that is to be expounded. Rather, the aim is to show that the facts of the Gospel of John are indeed mystical facts, but that they are therefore also historical facts. Christianity is not to be shown as mystical, as a mystical concept, but as a fact that can be explained mystically, but is historically real. Those who were struck by the thyrsus can be led to the archetypes of what the books tell. Here we are tying in with something that I said last time in relation to the historical-critical research of the gospels. I said that the critics have accepted that the Gospel of Mark, although written much later, was not written by contemporaries. At the same time, I said that the writer of the Gospel of Mark does not describe the places where the events took place, and that the events and localities seem to be completely indifferent to him. I also said that what Mark links as facts is a kind of poetic composition, so that the chronological sequence cannot be decisive either. Therefore, the criticism admits of two things: that we cannot infer anything from the sequence of events and nothing from localities and places.

When Mark says “the mountain”, it is as if there had been only one mountain. This shows us how we have to seek the occult from the historical, and how reality relates to the shadow images. We can never test the shadow image against reality, but nor must the shadow image contradict reality.

It is also a requirement of occult research that we never present anything that contradicts historical-critical research. But this judgment ceases when we consider what lies behind the Gospel of Mark. “Mountains,” Mark speaks, and Matthew speaks similarly in the Sermon on the Mount. Only he who, as Clement of Alexandria says, can go back to the archetypes, can penetrate to the typical explanation, only he is capable of finding the archetypes, that is, the spaceless and timeless.

The gospels are all written in or with a certain secret language. They are written in such a way that they can be understood by the most simple-minded people, but there is no degree of understanding, however high, that could not find ever deeper and deeper truths in them. Those who know what a mundane word actually means in the secret language can unravel the secret meaning of the Gospels. If you just read what is at the beginning of what we call the Sermon on the Mount, you will find that it says something very general: He sat down on a mountain and opened his mouth and spoke to his disciples. He did not speak to the people, he went away with the disciples and spoke to them. The initiate understands this immediately because he knows that the words “going up the mountain” have a certain meaning. It means going into the interior of a sanctuary, where secret teachings are received, so that nothing more is said with these lines than: Jesus saw that something had to be taught to the people; so he led the disciples into a temple and explained to them what was to be handed down to the people. In ancient traditions, every disciple learned what these words have meant since time immemorial. You can go through the religious books of all times and you will always find the meaning of these words “to go up the mountain”. It is necessary to really understand this language in order to learn the occult.

Today, I would like to share with you some of the Secret Doctrine from the point of view that can introduce and lead us to an understanding of the Gospel of John. The scholars have taken great pains to understand the Gospel of John. But there are many points that cannot be understood by pure word research. Just as little as one can understand what “going up the mountain” means, one will not be able to understand other expressions. You can go through entire volumes of learned researchers and you will find that only one, Betke, came very close to the meaning, but only close. He would have to know the secret language. But the fact that someone came close to it shows that the secret meaning lies in the words.

One point I would still like to touch on is where the wedding at Cana is described. You remember the words:

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. But Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. And since there was a lack of wine, the mother says to him, “They have no wine.” Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. [John 2:1-5]

It is noteworthy that the mother of Jesus' name is not mentioned. And what constitutes the crux of the matter is that Jesus says, “Woman, what do I have to do with you?” And the following words: “My hour has not yet come.” Take another passage in John where it is said who witnessed the crucifixion. If you compare this with the other gospels, you will find that they describe it quite differently. If you only read it in the gospel of John, you can hardly make sense of it. The same applies to the passage about the distribution of the robe:

So the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts, to every soldier a part; but also his coat. But the robe was seamless, woven in one piece from the top down. So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to decide whose it will be,” that the scripture might be fulfilled which says, “They divided my garments among them and cast lots for my robe.” [John 19:24].

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. [John 19:25]

It is not said of the mother of Jesus that her name was Mary, just as it was not said at the wedding at Cana. It is said that the sister of the mother of Jesus was called Mary. If one wanted to go by the wording here, then two sisters must have been standing at the cross, both named Mary.

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.

Read it in John. A disciple is always mentioned: ‘a disciple whom he loved’. [...]

Then saith he to the] mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the] he, behold thy mother! And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

We are told that the disciple whom Jesus loved stood at the cross, that He made him His mother's son, and that this son took the mother to be his. This, of course, can only be the same mother spoken of at Cana of Galilee. This has caused the interpreters the greatest difficulties, and we must ask ourselves: What is actually behind this? What can be said about it? We can only grasp the Gospels correctly if we know what the mother of a spirit-afflicted personality is in the secret language. We must be clear about who Jesus is talking about when he speaks of his mother, and we must understand this speech in the sense that we learn in occult schools.

The one who comes into this world as an initiate – whether he be on the level of Buddha or higher, like Jesus, the Christ – does not derive his origin from this world. What lives in him comes from another world. He is the messenger of another world. He is born out of this world only in his physical and temporal existence, at a certain place. He who has entered the world as an initiate has the highest degree of what is called tolerance. You will never find even a trace of what could be called intolerance in an initiate. When an initiate goes somewhere to proclaim a teaching, he will practice the principle of tolerance to the highest degree. He will not offend anyone's feelings. The initiate knows that the truth has existed among all peoples. He knows that the truth is present everywhere in some form or other. He knows that the world is progressing, and he regards himself as an instrument of the world spirit, which is beyond physical reality and has the task of advancing the world a little further. He does not lead people by spreading a doctrine that hurts them, but he associates above all with those who long for liberation from old bonds. He does not associate with scribes and Sadducees, but with those who are sinners in the sense of these scribes, but who long for something that is yet to come.

Those He comes to are completely entwined with their people and their time. Jesus came to the Jews, although He was not born of this people, and had to work among them. He had to create something higher out of the substance of the people, which would flourish in the world. His followers came from three groups. The first group were those who were attached to Judaism, to the laws that he had not come to abolish but to fulfill with complete tolerance. This was the people in whom he planted his teaching like a mustard seed, so that it would flourish. The second group, where he spread his teaching with complete love and tolerance. This was the group that believed in him because of his personal power and influence. These were the ones who were close to him, who knew what he meant to them. And there was still a third group. These were the ones who believed because of the deeds he did, although they were not particularly close to him, but who were captivated by his appearance, and therefore, at the moment when this appearance was dragged down – after the crucifixion – they could no longer believe until they had proof.

He had spoken to these three groups. In the language of the secret lore, they must have a very definite designation. He calls the time and the people into which the initiate is born his “mother”. He thus calls the Jewish people 'mother'. When Jesus spoke of 'the mother of Galilee', he meant the Jewish people: to them he showed the water of the Old Testament and the wine of the New. The souls in whom a teaching is laid are represented by female personalities. Those who were close to him are represented by Mary, the wife of Clopas. These were attached to Jesus because of their personal relationship. The third group were people who needed proof. Now we know that Jesus entrusted the mission of taking care of the Jewish-Christian people to another. Now we know why he says to the mother, Jewish Christianity: This is your son! This is the one who has to carry Christian progress, this is the disciple whom he loves. And now we know that the disciple took on the task. This refers to the words: And from that hour he took the mother with him. That is, he was the one who was to develop Christianity out of Judaism.

One word remains unclear: “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. We need to recognize who the disciple is here. The word means that Jesus initiated the person himself. This shows that the master is this disciple's friend and loves him.

You can find a more detailed explanation of the miracle of Lazarus in my book “Christianity as a Mystical Fact”. I can only give a hint here of what this miracle of Lazarus is. The one who knows how the initiations were carried out, knows how the three-day procedure of the burial took place, he knows that after three days there was the resurrection, he reads in the raising of Lazarus the story of initiation, he reads in the individual words the exact description of an initiation. Nothing else happened there than that the Christ, the Master, initiated Lazarus, that is, He allowed his lower personality to die and resurrected his higher personality after three days. Read also the words: “I am the resurrection and the life.” If you understand how to read these words correctly according to the spirit that gives life, you will find that Lazarus was a resurrected person in the sense of Christ. You will also find the expression “Jesus loved Lazarus so much” where the miracle of Lazarus is told.

But how is it that the miracle of Lazarus is only found in the Gospel of John? How is it that such great significance is attached to this miracle of Lazarus in the Gospel of John? And how is it that the disciple whom Jesus loved appears only after the miracle of Lazarus? Read the Gospel of John from this point of view and you will not be able to understand it, but you will believe it when someone who knows it tells you that this miracle of Lazarus performed by the disciple whom Jesus loved is an avowal of something that John himself experienced. At that time he became the awakened disciple whom Jesus loves. This self-confession is appreciated by those who know the style of such presentations from ancient times, when they were not written down but proclaimed over and over again from the pulpits. You don't often find such self-confessions that this or that person was dear to someone. That is why the miracle is only told in the Gospel of John, precisely because it is a self-confession. This is also the reason why the deepest things are told in the Gospel of John, namely the life of Jesus himself. This is also the reason why the one who originally lived it – not the writer – knew it best. Let us read the Gospel of John in a typical way, and decipher the deeper meaning in it.

It is not surprising that the Christian church fathers, the scholars of the first centuries, never tired of interpreting the Gospel of John; they wanted to understand precisely this Gospel of John. If one knows that the disciple whom Jesus loved has taken the mother with him, then one also understands the beginning:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [John 1:1]

But this is only clear to the occult researcher; but for him it is quite clear. As is well known, where the German translation has the 'word', the expression 'logos' is found. In the beginning was the logos. So what is the logos? The concept of the logos, as it is meant here, is difficult to understand. It has an ancient origin. Now it is true that the Gospel of John, as it is presented to us, has a strong nuance of Greek writing. But if you examine it closely, you will see on the other hand that the writer of the Gospel of John has kept what it originally was, namely a book written by the disciple whom the Master loved, a book that was supposed to show that this disciple took the mother of Jesus to his home. To understand this, you have to be familiar with the deeper Jewish teachings. You won't find these deeper Jewish teachings among the Pharisees and Sadducees. You are more likely to find them among the Sadducees. But you will find them among a great personality in Alexandria. But you will also find the teachings of the Logos there. However, this word did not originate in Alexandria either. You can follow this word throughout the ages. I would just like to give a few examples of what the people of that time associated with the word logos. As the word is presented to us, it is only a Greekized Hebrew term. Because Plato adopted the logos in his teaching, it was said that he was an Attic-speaking Moses. We should not be surprised that we have preserved the teaching of logos in a somewhat Greek form.

Go to the ancient teachings of the Indians and you will come to the original law. This is all that belongs to the Vedas. “Veda means nothing other than ‘sacred knowledge,’ and knowledge in all these ancient times means something that comes from God Himself. However, the significance of this discussion would take us too far afield. The most important part of the Vedas is the Rig-Veda. 'Rig' means 'word', and the teachings of the Rig-Veda were presented in such a way that the great teachers received them from God himself. It is the knowledge, and this knowledge was written down in the Rig-Veda. It is the knowledge that was revealed to the Rishis. Even with the ancient Indians, the word was already understood not only as the spoken word, but also as that by which the word is made. Just as the word is created by sound, so the universe was also formed by the word.

When we come to Persia, we find there the sacred book of the Persians, the I cannot go into detail now, but it should actually be Avesta-Zend. 'Zend' is the word. It is exactly the same as in Indian. The word of creation became the word by which the Persian magician received the secret of creation.

And if you go to Babylonia, you will again find that there is a book – “book” is roughly the same as word, the teachings were passed down orally in those days – Oanes, which revealed to the old priests everything they needed for their religious and secular culture. If you go back to all these peoples and their religions, you will find the concept of the word. You will find that the concept of the Logos is present in you, just as it is present in later, secret Jewish teachings. But you will find that in all these ancient peoples who use the concept of Logos before Judaism, this word Logos has something much more alive, and that in Judaism it becomes something abstract. The Persian imagined that the word was proclaimed to the magician by living beings, by angels, devas. They are the bearers of the word. It is the devas who, in the case of the Indians, carry the word into the earthly world. In this case, the messenger is still being considered. It is the living word that is spoken by God and brought down to men by divine messengers, by devas or angels. It is similar with the Babylonians. Everything that interposes itself between God Himself and man is justified by a special mission in world history, which has full justification in the Jewish creed.

The Jewish confession erases the intimate relationship with all the intermediaries that stand between God and man. God becomes the otherworldly Jehovah, of whom no one is allowed to form an image, and the only thing that man is allowed to know about him is the law that he has given. This is the Logos, which can only become an idea in man; this is the completely abstract, shadowy Logos. This fact exists. From Judaism, with its conception of the doctrine of Logos and the doctrine of the law, the disciple whom Jesus loved had to proclaim the truth: that this Jesus, who lived among his disciples, was himself the messenger, the Son of God. In other words, just as devas, angels and so forth were once the bearers of the Word, so it has now become the case that Jesus, having become Christ, was the Word made flesh. It was difficult at that time to make this understandable, because in the following period the connection between man and God through the intermediate link had been lost: the Logos had become flesh, the Logos was God Himself.

We see that by the third century a sect had formed that was a staunch opponent of the Gospel of John. They called themselves Alogoi; they wanted nothing to do with it. These Alogoi already existed in the second century, and the Gospel of John had many opponents at that time. How did it come about that the understanding of the Gospel of John was lost? We can only understand this if we realize how man in earlier times related to his gods. Brahma and the other gods were nothing other than that which lives in the world and with the world; they were precisely that which manifests itself in every single thing and, above all, in every single human being. Man may be a weak creature, but man is developing higher and higher, and the God who is in the word is being expressed more and more.

This is not pantheism, nor a vague concept of God, nor a denial of God, but a concept as exalted as it can be. It is still preserved in one term, in 'pontifex maximus', the bridge-maker, the priest. And why is that? Because he had to be a more developed person, one whose inner self was already one step [higher] than the others, a person who had reached a higher level of development. Those who know how to research can historically prove that the ancient gods of the Greeks were originally humans, people who lived originally and were imagined to have worked their way up to a higher level of divinity. It was the same with the Persians. They also had beings like the devas and angels, which were gradually different, but which led one step further – up.

Man too could become divine. He could reach the stage where the Word was revealed in his own breast; for him who could develop so far, there was a union of the Logos within his own breast with the Logos outside. He could ascend with the consciousness of the Logos. He could achieve the incarnation of the Logos Himself. That was a concept that the people of that time could understand. They could understand that through further development, the consciousness of the inner word could be obtained, the word through which all things are made, which was with God originally, which was the life of men as well as the life of the whole world - and this word became the light of man. It shone within man, and those who received it were called “children of God.

So you see that in the Gospel of John it is suggested that the Logos can become conscious in man and that those who can become aware of this state are called sons of God. That is why he said elsewhere: You are gods – and he thus explains why he calls himself a son of God. If we keep this in mind, John had two things to give: firstly, that the ancient consciousness that man has a divine consciousness within him can come to a head, can become an experience, and secondly, that the one who lived in Palestine was the revelation of the same Logos who lives in every human being in general and who came among people as Logos. From him one had to grasp that he became the Logos at this excellent place and at the excellent time.

They only understood the Logos, but they no longer knew how to connect with him. And because they no longer knew how to connect with the human being, it became difficult for them to understand the Logos who became flesh. Therefore, the Greek point of view, which develops the deification of man in his own higher service, and that of Alexandrian Christianity, had to be mediated. The starting point had to be taken from there. These two things had to be linked. The Logos, which can only reveal itself as law, had to be mediated with the original concept of Logos. If you hold on to that, you will understand that two currents were necessary in original Christianity.

One was the current that had not yet been alienated from the original concept of Logos consciousness, which holds that the development of man leads straight up to divinity and that the Logos can be grasped. This stood alongside the other current, which saw the Logos in the blue distance, which could only see the Logos as a revelation from outside and which therefore found it difficult to understand that the Logos had become man. For these two movements, other terms had to be created so that the Logos was “in essence” Jesus as a human being with the Logos as God. Only in this way could an understanding be brought about. These two movements existed side by side. It can be said that one movement understood the Gospel of John, while the other understood it less. They also held on to it, but interpreted it differently. “To those he gave power to become the sons of God” – this was not understood. But this was what Arius had to defend at the Council of Nicaea. He defended the essential unity of the Logos with Jesus and the germ of God in man. The other current made the word of the incarnate God a dogma and part of the Trinity doctrine, which became something quite different from its original meaning. This current sought to present the revelation in such a light that only the church could represent it, since it went beyond all human understanding. At the Council of Nicaea, the Gospel of John was wrongly accepted against the Arian view.

Since the Middle Ages, scholasticism has taught thinking that is free from all sensual experience, but also thinking that is unselfish, devoted, and faithful to an existing word, and not to assert selfish criticism and the selfish mind. This is something that the Christian thinker has accepted for centuries, a good training, a school of devoted thinking. Those who today, without knowing it, speak disparagingly and contemptuously of scholasticism do not understand this. Those who know scholasticism know what has been achieved here in terms of selfless thinking, where the person does not say, “I, I have found this, I am called to find a conviction here at all costs,” but where he says, “What am I, who is it and what is it when I think that the teaching was given by the spirit?” There, all selfish intellect was sacrificed for the knowledge of a teaching that selflessly surrendered to the truth. The realization that our race is ancient, that people have always thought, and that we have not been waited for, nor for what we will bring forth, must lead us to this.

If we learn to research the writings of the Fathers, we will mature and come to recognize the true figure more and more. The movement of the Theosophical Society, which seeks to promote research into the Gospel of John, wants a humble search for the truth everywhere.

But I would like to say that anyone who has had the good fortune to go a little deeper knows that in the science of our time – be it philosophy, natural science, medicine, theology and so on – the one who has absorbed it no longer believes, “I am called to decide.” If we have become humble, then we read the book of John's gospel again, then we will find that some things are copied differently by the writer, but it was thought through from a materialistic and also a higher point of view and found that we do not find the meaning on our plan. This is not the case, as if I wanted to say something rhetorically nicely, but I speak this under full responsibility in the sense of those who have taken up today's science, and then, after they have done so, have delved into this book of wisdom, into this book of truth. There they found something: when they set about studying this book, they found that the truth flowed towards them in a high form and that all their learning of the present time can only serve to let the glory of this truth flow into them. But that is not all. In addition, those who have such experiences have a new realization: whenever they return to the Gospel of John, they are strengthened and invigorated each time. When they come back from the Gospel of John, they get the feeling that the truth contained in it is infinite, that it is something of infinite depth. And they say to themselves: Here I am a beginner, even the most advanced of our days are beginners here. They have experienced being beginners. This gives a revelation concept, not in the sense of the Middle Ages, but one that is the gateway to truth, the gate to truth, as Jesus said, a source of truth. The Gospel of John is one of the guides. To make this a principle and to put it into practice in the broadest circles is the task of the Gospel of John and the Johannine Society. Anyone who knows what is to be found here, what is to be learned here, may wholeheartedly join this Johannine Society and this study of the Gospel of John.

The Gospel of Mark was around centuries before Christianity was founded. It is nothing more than an ancient initiation document about how one was initiated in India, Central Asia and the Iranian regions, how one ascended to occult knowledge, acquired the highest knowledge, how one became an initiate, a sun worshipper, where one was initiated up to what is called the ascension. That was written in these initiation documents.

They were not written in this or that language, they were even very rarely written at all. But they were kept in an imperishable language, in the common language of all occultists, in a symbolic language. To understand them, occult studies must be done. These initiation documents were kept top secret through the millennia. They were kept secret by both the priests of Egypt and the Druid priests in Europe. This was also because they could not be of any use to anyone. They could only be of use to those who could understand them.

Now, a historical fact took place on the stage of history that we call the baptism, suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. This outwardly expressed fact is also a mystical fact. It is something that can only be understood as a historical fact if one understands what this particular initiation is, which was in the initiation document I spoke of. In other words, what took place in the years 30 to 33 as the suffering and death of Christ has taken place countless times within the temples. The process became a typical image for all of them after someone had applied the stages of development to an external event.

The first teachers of Christianity therefore approached their students in something like the following manner: “For you and for the sake of you, a great historical process has taken place. But you can only understand this if we tell you about life inside the temples.” And so they preached to them about how one becomes initiated. What had otherwise taken place symbolically inside the temples was now being told so that those who could not see could now believe.

Documents such as the Gospel of Mark are records of this. Now I have explained to you how the Gospel of John relates to all this. John presented himself as the actual executor of Christ's will. The words that Jesus spoke on the cross are not without significance. He hands over to the mother the disciple whom he loves. And the disciple whom Jesus loved was, according to the records of the Akasha Chronicle, Lazarus, who had been initiated by Jesus. Thus the miracle of Lazarus presents itself as an initiation process. This means nothing other than that he was the disciple who had been initiated, who could therefore say the most profound thing that can be said. That is why the Gospel of John is the deepest and why it has also become a message whose explanation can never end. One penetrates deeper and deeper, one finds ever new points, even the scholar.

We find there the transformation of the water of the old covenant into the wine of the new covenant. The “mother” signifies the Jewish people, to whom Jesus transforms the water into the wine of the new Christianity. This is also the reason why the Gospel of John has been regarded as the most occult of the Gospels. From the thirteenth chapter onwards, it is not only intellectually comprehensible, but every sentence that is written is also imbued with occult power.

The Gospel of John has been regarded as an elixir of life, particularly by the disciples of the Rosicrucians. From the washing of the feet onwards, the entire content can be experienced mystically. Anyone who applies it to the whole human being and permeates it with life will experience something within themselves and then understand that much of the Gospel cannot be understood at all without this experience. Every person can mystically go through and live through every single sentence. This is how we should understand the position of the great teacher at the dawn of Christianity. What was new about Christianity was that it revealed what had previously been the wisdom of the mysteries.

A fundamental experience of the theosophist is devotion. The fact that the disciple of Jesus enters the grave to see if he is there or not is not the important thing. What is important is being carried by devotion. There is no path that is not permeated by devotion. And the further one advances on the path of knowledge, the more one will have to acquire devotion. One will become more and more devoted. From this devotion, the power for the highest realizations then flows. Those who manage to refrain from connecting their thoughts will attain the reading of the scriptures in the Akasha Chronicle. But one thing is necessary: to have eliminated the personal ego to such an extent that it no longer claims to connect thoughts itself. It is not so easy to understand this, because man claims the right to connect the predicate with the subject. But as long as he does this, it is impossible for him to really study occult history. If he allows thoughts to arise in selflessness, but also in awareness and clarity, then an event occurs that every occultist knows from a certain point of view, namely the event that the ideas, the thoughts, which he previously formed into sentences and insights from his personal point of view, are now formed by the spiritual world itself, so that he does not judge, but that judgment is made in him. It is then the case that he has sacrificed himself so that a higher self speaks spiritually through his ideas. This is – understood occultly – what was called the sacrifice of the intellect in the Middle Ages. It means giving up my own opinion, my own conviction. As long as I connect my thoughts myself and do not make my thoughts available to higher powers, which then, as it were, write on the tablet of the intellect, I cannot study occult history. It is a contradiction to the higher powers, it is what is usually considered in our time to be particularly remarkable. The theosophist describes what is needed as devotional devotion. This devotion flows from facts such as those related in the Gospel of John.

Questions and Answers

Since a question has been asked here about the brotherhood, I have to say that it is not good to talk about such occult communities because occult powers stand behind them. We are dealing with occult traditions and occult knowledge in more places than we usually realize. There are occult forces and truths in this or that that is really there. And these occult currents have a very specific reason. No one can be drawn into such currents by their own power. It is a matter of how they were introduced, what role they play in it and what and who speaks through them. This is related to the fact that in the whole world it is always ensured that the rivers of divine wisdom never dry up completely. Even if all occultism were to disappear from educated circles, there will always be places where occultism can flow out.

In the fall, I will speak about what are called the apocalypses. First, the Revelation of John; second, the future of thought; third, the future of pneuma; and fourth, the future of harmony.

John, Lazarus, the disciple whom the Lord loved, and the disciple at the cross are one and the same person.

Whether the Christ can only apply to an initiate can be taught by the writing, which can be read in four ways. The first level is where it is read according to the simple naive word, the second level is where one doubts, the third level is where one reads it symbolically, the fourth level is where one recognizes the real meaning of the symbols and thus reaches the real literal meaning of the scriptures.

The descent of the Holy Spirit at the baptism of Jesus in the form of a dove is an important event in the life of Jesus. The parts before and after the baptism can be distinguished as higher and highest. Mark and John therefore tell us only about the highest forms in which the Christ appears to us. The three degrees of discipleship can be distinguished up to the baptism. But then a real transmutation of the being of Jesus takes place through the Christ. This Christ nature is identical with that which is called God in all religions and is often also called the Father Nature. Up to the age of thirty, we have to understand Jesus as every other initiate. But from that point on, the Christ-entity enters into him, and from that point on, the Jesus-Christ personality acquires a cosmological significance. This divine entity was before Abraham was.

If you ask me about the Judas problem, I have to say that Judas was, in a sense, a sacrifice. Someone had to sacrifice themselves so that the main sacrifice could take place. The same person who played the traitor at the time of Jesus of Nazareth was later active in Christianity. It is of great importance to know in which personality Judas has re-embodied himself. But this is a rather complicated and involved problem.

The 'Mother of Jesus' characterizes the Jews as a nation, the Jews who lived in the land and were subject to Jewish law, and those who were scattered throughout the world.

'Galilean' means something like 'heathen mouth'. There was a lot of travel in the place where Jesus was born. A great many foreign people passed through there. You can find the answer to the question regarding Jesus' ascension in the Gospel of John. Jesus' bones were not broken, while the bones of the other robbers were broken. If you understand what the skeletal system is, then you will also understand what it means: resurrection in a glorified body.

Today I would like to give an overview of a certain period of our development and in doing so I will have to repeat some things that I have already said in these hours. But we will see it in a larger context and also find some things that we already know illuminated from a new side. In fact, one must realize that one can only recognize the basic fact of world evolution if it is illuminated from the most diverse points of view, and only then can one gradually form an idea of how the context is actually to be imagined.

Today I would like to briefly touch on some questions that are often discussed in theosophical teachings, but which usually remain somewhat obscure because it is not mentioned how the questions in question are related to direct human experience.

Above all, this is the question of the so-called Trinity. It is emphasized over and over again that the idea of the Trinity can be found in all religions and that it is one of the oldest religious teachings. Above all, it is emphasized that, regardless of whether we go to India, Persia or Egypt, to the Germans, Germanic peoples or Celts, we find three aspects of the deity everywhere, endowed with roughly the same characteristics. You can find the Indian trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva again and again.

I would now like to show you how this trinity arose from a human experience, albeit an experience of a very different nature from our usual experiences today. This experience is one of the oldest components of human wisdom, and teachers of the Lemurian era have already taught this doctrine. But if we go back and examine the actual occult traditions, we find that these three aspects of the Godhead also refer to three distinct stages of development of man himself, in addition to everything else. The man of the third root race, the man of the middle of the Lemurian period, was more aware than has come again in a later time, that his innermost self is one and the same with the great divine self.

More than it became knowledge again in a later time, at that time it was an immediate intuitive conviction. It was clear to those who had reached a certain level of development that as man develops, the Godhead itself develops. And so let us consider the three most important stages of human evolution today.

But how could these stages be viewed in the past? In the past, knowledge was gained in a completely different way. Knowledge that is gained by observing things and then forming ideas about them has only existed since the middle of the third root race. Before the middle of the third root race, no one had acquired knowledge in this way, by looking at things, observing them. This knowledge through external observation, experience, only begins in the middle of the Lemurian race. Everything is in a certain state of flux, and so this knowledge begins for the two most exquisite senses, preferably in the middle of the Lemurian race. The other senses, smell and taste, already had sensation before that. But hearing and sight only began in the middle of the Lemurian race. Before that, knowledge arose as if a kind of water gushed up from the earth. It was as if the human being brought across the midpoint of the Lemurian race, showing in particular his previous states himself, his states during the first, second and first half of the third human race. This was a kind of intuitive memory knowledge, and it was the case that man at that time, when he became outwardly seeing, hearing and perceiving, remembered three important conditions.

Firstly, his experiences in the first human race, then his experiences in the second human race and thirdly, the experiences of the first half of the third human race. He named these three states as follows: the state of the first human race corresponded to Brahma, the state of the second human race to Vishnu, and the state of the first half of the third human race to Shiva.

In Brahma, we see the evolution of the God developing in humanity in the state in which man was during the first human race. At that time, man lived in pure ethereal matter. He was luminous like the etheric body. So the body that man had at that time was a mere etheric body. But it was similar to the astral body. When the ancient Indians wanted to visualize this etheric body of the first race, they imagined it under the name Brahma. Brahma was therefore also seen as the god of the ether-illuminating light.

This state was replaced by the so-called air state. The second race lived in this. If you wanted to get an idea of it according to our present concepts, it would be very unclear, because the second human race incarnated in a body that was denser than today's air, but which was still air-shaped. It was something of which one could say that the divine being sends its angels like winds. It was no longer an etheric genus, but a condensed aerial genus. Therefore, when naturalists try to find prehistoric man and are surprised that they no longer find any remains above a certain level, we need not be surprised, since man at that time could not provide stone imprints. That is Vishnu.

The third is Shiva, called the 'Destroyer' on the one hand and on the other the 'Rebuilder'. Adam-Kadmon was the sexless man. He was destroyed by the god Shiva. But another was created in return, hence Shiva is also called the god of rebirth, the god of procreation. Wherever Siva or the deity corresponding to Siva is depicted, he is depicted as the god of procreation.

These are the three aspects of the deity that man took from experience. These are states that he himself has gone through.

Then we speak of the “Sons of the Fire Mist.” The Lemurian continent was destroyed by fire, not by water, like the Atlantic continent. I ask you to keep this in mind, it is not easy to grasp. During the second human race, that is, during the so-called Hyperborean time, people were air beings. They were beings incarnated in air and they were completely in swinging, vibrating motion. They already brought the predisposition for organs with them. However, they had not yet developed. What developed first was the predisposition for the ear. At that time, man was a resounding being. He was as if one could have heard him. This has been preserved in the Vishnu teachings. Vishnu found wisdom in the conch shell. This is an indication that mankind was already predisposed to hearing at that time. During the development of the third race, in the Lemurian period, the ability to see forms and to distinguish objects was formed. The inner life was already present earlier. But what approached us from the outside could not yet be distinguished at that time. The eye could not yet perceive forms. The ability to see spatially was only just being developed. As a result, man grew into the physical world. This development was completed in the middle of the Lemurian period.

Now what is primarily the task of the human race occurs: Manas was to be developed in all directions. One could not speak of Manas at all before. Before that, one could only speak of Mahat. The human being of the Hyperborean time, when he has seen the stars, will have seen them moving according to laws. But that was not one of the abilities of Manas. Manas was not an innate ability in us.

Mahat was there as a grand world tableau. Manas is basically something that has only entered into man since the middle of the Lemurian period. Since that time, human development has been an education of the previously acquired qualities and abilities through the manas that has now entered into man. So manas has to educate the various abilities that were previously developed in man.

During each epoch that now follows, Manas has a very specific task. The first epoch we encounter is that of the middle to the end of the Lemurian period. There Manas educates the outer perception that man had to acquire in the Lemurian race. Then, in addition, man has to connect perceptions with what he sees. But what man does not yet have is memory and the power of thought. Memory and logic do not yet exist. Man can see something and connect an idea with what he has seen, but he is incapable of holding on to this idea by means of memory. However, his imagination is all the more intense. It is tremendously intense and of tremendous vividness, so that it does not pass him by without having left behind a very specific feeling. These feelings are not retained by memory, because the Lemurian man does not yet have such a memory. But he retains it in feeling. Remnants of the Lemurian race can be found in the decadent tribes of Australia. They also have no memory that extends beyond twenty-four hours.

The deep feeling that arises from perception has a very special effect. This second race has an intuitive knowledge of reincarnation. And that comes from the following. There were not very many who incarnated at that time. They had a vivid feeling because they retained a deep feeling for every experience. And this feeling remained incorporated in the causal body, which it took over into the following incarnation.

This is to be recorded as a fact from the second epoch of the Lemurian period. The interaction with the environment was so vivid that man was already aware of an outside world and that he was connected to things. When he came into this world again, he sensed his kinship with things. It was then as with people who have a particularly keen sense of smell and can then say to themselves, I have smelled that before. It was something like that with these Lemurians of the second half of the Lemurian period.

The Lemurian continent formed approximately the ground of southern India and south of India. This continent was destroyed by fire. But there were still tribes left in the neighboring areas. They lived through the entire Atlantean period. In part, they mixed with the Atlanteans. So there were people here with an extremely intense sense of reincarnation.

Let us now note: Lemuria had perished, and we come to the next, to the Atlantean race of men. They had the task of further developing their inner life. What emerged as a new human faculty was memory, which was not yet present in the Lemurians, but was present in the Atlanteans. They had an extremely well-developed memory. Logical thinking did not yet exist at that time. Arithmetic, multiplication tables and so on did not yet exist. They formed an objective picture of, let us say, seventeen or twenty beans, in heaps of such and such a size. The first faculty was therefore imagination. The second was memory.

In the Toltec sub-race, this memory was joined in the middle by the first rudiments of the ability to think. A fairly crude ability to think was now slowly developing. An ability that not only made it possible to memorize, but also to combine. This was still very crude in the Toltecs, and it was still crude in the Turanians. But it reached a certain high level among the Proto-Semites. Therefore, the Jews were called upon to further educate the following race, precisely because they had best cultivated thinking. This combinatorial thinking developed in a schematic way. [...]

The pre-Semitic race provided the basis for our Aryan race. Now I will show what was to be developed in the Aryan race. In the Lemurian race it was the imagination, in the Atlantean race it was memory. Now in the Aryan race it is what is called the faculty of thinking. Every race in the world, every stage, every step of development has a specific task. The earlier principle is always further developed with the help of a later one. What was there earlier is now further developed with Manas. In the fifth root race, Manas now developed further. This thinking ability is the most inward thing we can behold. It therefore has a very personal character. While the Lemurians had an immediate consciousness of reincarnation, the Atlanteans had a very weakened memory of reincarnation in their inner life. He could, if something had been developed, refresh the consciousness of the Lemurian race within himself, and then people remembered events in their past lives. But on the whole, in the Atlanteans, in whom the combinatorial ability developed, the feeling for reincarnation was completely dead. And it was even more natural that within the fifth root race this feeling could not be there. Thinking is an innermost personal matter. The personality of man mainly pursues the life between birth and death. Therefore, in the power that the fifth root race had to develop, there is little that could have led to professing reincarnation. Then the leaders of the fifth root race have in the most diverse ways a very sensible network spanned over the world.

I hardly need to repeat that this root race started from the Gobi Desert, where a number of selected people were placed by the so-called Manu. From the Ursemites, people were sent to the most diverse parts of the world. The first cultural current therefore went out from the Gobi Desert and fertilized India. Here the work was done by the initiates, and I expressly note that initiates are always in possession of wisdom and that there has never been an initiates' lodge in which the knowledge of reincarnation was not present. So the current goes down to India. There a culture is founded, as is generally the case with initiates, by adding a new impetus with full tolerance of what is encountered there.

So the thinking power is instilled in this lively feeling that the Lemurians still have of reincarnation. The marriage of the best that remained from the Lemurian period with the best that the Aryan race had to give. That is the union. Therefore you will also understand why you will find no mention of reincarnation in the ancient scriptures of the Vedas. The knowledge of reincarnation arose through the union of the feeling of the Lemurians with the power of thought of the Aryans. This high wisdom of the original human races, based on direct certainty, had been united here with the pure spiritual life of the people of the fifth root race. This is the original Indian wisdom. A branch of it was sent down to Egypt. That is why there is also a similarity to this cultural layer. This is the first great cultural current to have taken place within the fifth, the Aryan race. It was initiated by the initiates with the admirable purpose of achieving the highest by using what was already there.

Remnants of the Atlantean race were present in all other areas of the Earth, especially around the shores of the Mediterranean and into Asia. Only in our regions, in Germany, did they still live. You have to imagine this with the corresponding aggregate states – something of the Hyperborean type still lived. You must not imagine that this ancient Hyperborean type lived in the blood; that would be too gross. In its entire way of thinking, it lived in such a way that here, too, it was possible to establish a very spiritual way of looking at things. In Europe, therefore, almost exactly the same thing happened with the original Indian teaching: a spiritual teaching was established, which later appeared somewhat diluted in the old Druid culture. Here one could still tie in with the old.

But at the same time, if you compare this old Druid culture with the old Vedic culture, you will see that there is a difference again. What the old Druid culture has is an absolute belief in the immortality of the soul, in the eternity of the soul. But it is not that it is an explicit doctrine of reincarnation, and that will be understandable to you. Just as the remains of the Lemurians were found in the south, so there are, so to speak, here present peoples who, because they were remnants of the Atlanteans, knew little of reincarnation. And from the other side, they came from the Hyperborean race. They were parts of the second race. During the second human race, during the Hyperborean race, there was still no reincarnation. That is why the Druids had such an intensive doctrine of immortality. This was the remnant of the old Hyperborean knowledge.

Now, a fertilization takes place here, and different currents arise. The second current, which pours forth first, sent initiates into colonies everywhere - as in ancient Persia, in the ancient Iranian culture. Then, a culture is created around the Mediterranean that is similar everywhere, by peoples who are remnants of the different races. This is most pronounced in the Iranians, who developed into what is called the Zoroastrian doctrine. It is an absolute doctrine of immortality. For the reasons that have been indicated, it is not based on a doctrine of reincarnation here. And that will explain to you why you cannot find a real doctrine of reincarnation in Persian teaching. The initiated have always used what was there and developed it a little further.

Then came the second cultural current. This found expression in Europe in such a way that the memory of it has remained, especially of the initiates of the second cultural current. They have remained present everywhere in the memory of the various European peoples. These initiates have been preserved here in the north as Wodan, Wili, Loki and so on, in Greece as the gods, as Zeus and so on. The various circles of gods are the initiates who spread this culture throughout the world.

Now comes the third impact of initiates. This resulted primarily in what we see in Egypt, which is Egyptian historical culture. That is the third impact. And what is heroic culture in Greece. All the initiates of the third current have been preserved as heroic names, such as Hercules and so on. They have been preserved in our culture. These are the German heroes, the German initiates - as for example in the saga of Dietrich of Bern, which has very similar traits to the Greek saga of Hercules. This is the culture preserved from the heroic age. This is the third sub-race of the fifth root race. It produced what is called artistic culture in the various fields, both in terms of myth-making and in terms of plastic art in Asia, Greece and here as well.

Now a new race formation begins. Greek culture spreads to Italy. The new race formation begins a few centuries before the birth of Christ, again with the Semitic peoples moving around the shores of the Mediterranean. There are always Semitic influences, as I have described. Now we have the foundation of the Latin race, which is fertilized by Christianity. This develops until the ninth or tenth century. Then everything depends on the Latin race.

Then, more recently, a fertilization takes place through the westward movement of the Arabs. This again comes from dark sources. Mohamed is only a forward post. Behind him stands the great secret lodge.

And now comes the Germanic race in which we currently live. This is the development of the races that spread out across the world in a radiating pattern. The Initiate Colonies have never worked in any other way than with full consideration of what was already present in the areas in question.

This is what I wanted to give as a broad overview of the evolution from the Hyperboreans to our present time. From the question and answer session

During the Hyperborean period, things were prepared that were in the vibrations. People then had different ears, so to speak. Yes, they were distinguished by different vibrations. The similarity of the vibrations constituted the relationship. The Atlanteans had long since begun to develop, while Hyperborean development was still present, so that actual intercourse did indeed take place between the Atlanteans, who lived in Europe, and the air people.

1. Do you know how the soul came into the world?
2. Do you know how the soul leaves the world?
3. Do you know the difference between the path of the fathers and the path of the gods?
4. Do you know why that world is not full?
5. Do you know why, at the fifth revelation, the waters begin to speak with the voice of man?

The three lower principles of man are held together and enclosed by the etheric sheath in the same way as the three upper principles are held together and enclosed by the auric sheath. It is the etheric body that prevents the physical cells from falling apart.

Prana is only a part of Shiva, enclosed and thereby separated, existing in its own right. Kama and Kama-Manas lie in the template of the etheric body, which, on the way back to an incarnation, is formed by the soul by drawing from the general Rupa-Manas and Kama-Stoff precisely those components that made up its Kama and Rupa body before its Arupa stay. Every soul has an arupa stay, because only through this it is soul, that is, a causal body, that the foundation for unselfish mental life is laid. Even the savage has the germ for this, and however small this germ is, it provides him with the passage through the arupa sphere, through Devachan. Our thoughts, building themselves into mental matter, usually still have undefined, imprecise forms because they have so many shells to break through, to push against.

We only take their essence, their germ, with us into the Arupa sphere, where they swell up and only then live their own life. Before each new incarnation, the human being must pass through the state of semen, that is, through the Arupa sphere of Devachan. On the way back, the seed must, through the magnetic power of its own previous formations, that is, actions, feelings and thoughts, clothe itself again with the substance of which they were composed. In the astral sphere, the thought image, which has become precise, finds the forms and templates that have been created by itself and assigned to it by Lipika, the Lord of Karma, according to eternal laws. The Maharajas supply the etheric substance to these templates, as it were, and they carry it from all four winds. This is how the lower personal covering, the etheric double body, is created, which then sinks into the physical body.

We understand the world of our desires as the 'fathers' path', which still chains us to enjoyment; only when we have become accustomed to regarding the three lower realms merely as a hall of learning and no longer demand anything from them, are we ready for the 'gods' path', which opens up life in the spirit.

Devajani, Pitrijani. As long as we still strive for selfish happiness, that world, Devajani, cannot be full. Only when we renounce the fruits of our deeds are we not bound to the world of the fathers, the world of Kama. The deed alone does not bind us.

The first sacrifice: the division of unity into trinity. The second and third: the outpourings of the third Logos; the fourth: the ensoulment by the second Logos; the fifth: the material world is spiritually fertilized by the first Logos, man arises, the Word becomes flesh.

Ultimately, all knowledge serves to prepare our future. Other beings are guided; the law of crystallization is prescribed for the crystal; it does not need to be prefigured. This is how it is with plants and animals. Only in the middle of the Lemurian period did man begin to set goals for himself. Effective knowledge of the future is only possible if one knows the past. Thus, all human knowledge is destined to preserve the ideal for the future.

To understand how the earlier and the present round went, one must understand that the highest realm, the mineral realm, has reached its highest perfection, which is why it ends at the end of the fourth round. We must not confuse the mineral with the physical realm. If we could look ahead to the fifth round, we would see that there is no longer a mineral realm. This does not exclude the physical. Imagine intertwined plants, with man in the midst of them; everything in the lower world will have been transformed into plants. At the end of the fourth round, man will have reached the highest perfection of his mineral foundation. In the fifth, he will no longer have it, he will not produce anything mineral from himself.

He cannot enter this plant life immediately, but must go through three previous stages. His astral-mental body would not fit this plant body. Therefore, he must prepare himself and go through the three stages, which are called globes. Then they fit into the new physical stage. What has ceased is only what is connected with the mineral kingdom.

Birth and death are the same; they only come about in the fourth round because two different things, higher individuality and lower nature of man, come into contact with each other.

When you think of your individuality, it comes from much higher realms, while the body is made up of air, water and earth. Only a part of what the individuality is capable of can be expressed in the body. It is like a tent that is outlasted by the human being. He must change again and again because he is more. During the fifth round, we are dealing with the emergence of ever new human beings from the others.

Nothing dies, it is always all life. What arises in a certain respect from the shadow side is that the astral human being will have reached his actual organization. Today he is unorganized, not yet a bearer of the image of God; only the physical will become the image of God at the end of the fourth round. In the fifth round, man will have astral organs of action and sense. The sense organs will be the so-called chakras – five. They are named according to their form:

- the six-petalled lotus flower, in the center of the body, indicated in certain people, rotating in clairvoyants,
- a little further on is a ten-petalled organ,
- in the heart a twelve-petalled one,
- sixteen-petalled at the throat,
- between the eyebrows eighteen-petalled.

The outer body will form itself according to these organs. This has a specific consequence. Now the outer body is given by the outer nature, by the animal kingdom. Now it comes from what flows from the astral body; it is constructed from the astral realm and is therefore a reflection of what lives in the astral nature of the individual in question. So that Christian esotericism expressed it in such a way that it made it clear to the priests that <«Cain's» and «Abel's» will be the outward signs in people.

During the sixth round, the plant kingdom will have been completed and only the animal kingdom will exist, brought to its highest peak; only sentient life will exist. The whole earth will be sensation and movement. While in the fifth round the astral expressed itself as an outer body, in the sixth round thought will express itself in the animal body, in which the whole body moves rhythmically. That which lives in the soul will be expression, thought will be expression, a world communicating itself in sound. This is why Christian esotericism says: in the sixth round, all is sounding word.

Man's thinking life becomes direct expression. The previous proclamation of the walking word was the Word made flesh. The reference to this in the fourth round was Christ.

In the seventh round, the entire inner being of man will be turned outwards. Man can only stammer about that which lives on the Arupa plane. Then the “I am” will flow out. It is not confined in a body that separates it from the other “I”; all “I's” will be tones in a great symphony. In Christian esotericism, this is called “divinity”. This is what man must achieve in order to pass over to Mercury, just as he came from the moon before. To do this, we must have placed all our powers at the service of our ego in such a way that we are just as willing to receive as to give. This blessedness also means resting in oneself. For all previous states are striving; here there is a looking back on all that has been gathered.

In this image of God there will be no further work; the Godhead rests, looks back and rejoices in its works. “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all the host of them...”

Holy – is absolutely healthy, as
blessed – is completely imbued with soul.

What the original state of what is called “ancient wisdom” was and how it came to earth is today's topic.

There are two kinds of knowledge and realization. Let us imagine the inventor of a clock: he makes one, two, three clocks according to the plan that was originally present in his mind. First there was the thought, then the actual reality. This is one way of knowing something.

To get to know the other way, let us imagine that the watchmaker has died; the watches are there and someone else studies them, figures out the plan and makes other watches. He has the same knowledge but has obtained it in a different way; for him, the sensory perception was first, then the idea; for the other man, the idea was first.

These two ways of acquiring knowledge also exist in the great universe. Such a thought, which corresponds to the laws of reality and is there before the sensory object, is called “intuitive thought”. It is born of the spirit itself, a child of the mental world. The other is a child of the sensory world, it is called “inductive thought.

Now let us see how the difference between the above and the disciples would manifest itself. The inventor will be able to communicate his thoughts because he is the shaper, the creator, because he was there when the sensual arose from the mental. The one who has imitated will also / gap in the transcript /

The same difference is between the first teachers of humanity and all later ones. For the first teachers of humanity were involved in creation, were among those who formed, they participated when the world was still a cosmic thought. They [gap in the transcript]

The first Arhat or Maha were involved in the creation of the world. In the middle of the third root race, when the human kingdom came into being, A also embodied himself.

They brought knowledge from the workshop with them, and that is “ancient wisdom”; they brought with them what they had experienced.

The knowledge that one gains afterwards is the same as that which the original great spirits have from the laws of creation themselves. [Gap in the transcript] If you really know something, then you also have the laws by which the world is created. Manas and Mahat are therefore the same in content. Only Manas is in us: I. And Mahat is spread out as a tableau over the whole world. Only the way they are is different, the content is the same. The more we increase in knowledge, the more /gap in the transcript]

What was taught at that time from the creative activity of the sculptors was the first wisdom, and it is therefore more than all science can acquire. This occult sentence, that the world has its origin in cosmic thoughts and that knowledge culminates in human thought formation.

The I enters into the formation of the world; outside of the I - Mahat. The I, the creator, encompasses Mahat. The development consists in the I expanding its sphere over the whole of Mahat, and in the end Mahat itself is within the I. What is the difference? Beginning: Mahat is outside of the I, end: Mahat is in the I.

The only difference between the beginning and the end is that the ego sacrificed itself as a special being and, as a result of this sacrifice, acquired Mahat as its content.

The process of world formation consists in the fact that the I, which was previously excluded from Mahat, afterwards has Mahat as its content. Not Mahat, but the I has undergone a development. Meaningful sentence: The world is enclosed in cosmic thought formation [gap in the transcript], the I is outside.

This is only partly true, because in reality the ego is a part of Mahat. With us, every thought is a part of Mahat; let us try to symbolize one as content. Let us take the sentence: Evolution consists in the fact that each part of Mahat grows to such an extent that it becomes identical with the whole Mahat. The assimilation of all individuals to the whole Mahat takes place. The great sacrifice takes place. The whole Mahat gives its essence to all parts, that is development. The purpose of the world is that the whole gives its essence to each of its parts. It is certain that the whole was perfect at the beginning; but if it had no parts, it would remain as it is. Since it has them, it has given each of the parts its whole being, so that its own perfection is ultimately contained in each of its parts.

Beginning: Mahat is outside the “I”

End: Mahat is in the “I”

The only difference between the beginning and the end is that the “I” sacrificed itself as a separate being and, as the result of this sacrifice, received Mahat as its content.

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Evolution consists of each part of Mahat growing to such an extent that it becomes identical with the whole Mahat. The “great sacrifice” takes place: the whole Mahat gives its essence to all its parts. This is development.

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We must distinguish between the essence as such and between the perceptions and actions of the essence. These depend not only on the essence, but also on the world in which it is placed. The human being is in different worlds at different times, going through planets and globes. We have become acquainted with four of the three worlds. If he is to perceive and be active, he must form organs out of the world in question. In order to be able to work on the physical earth, he must form organs of perception out of the earth's materials. Thus we must distinguish between the being, which belongs to the world of the eternal, and the organs that it has formed out of the materials of the worlds it passes through.

If we did not have a physical hand, we would not be able to move an object, but would pass through matter. The hand must be impenetrable. [Gap in the transcript] It is the same with the sense organs. [Gap in the transcript] eyes. These organs are called Indriyas, and a distinction is made between Indriyas of the senses or perception and Indriyas of action. Every being forms organs of action and sense from the materials of the world through which it passes. Man belongs to the eternal world with his being, but with his organs to the world through which he passes. When he has traversed these worlds, he takes something from the worlds through his organs, which remains his possession. You had eyes when you emerged from the bosom of the Eternal, but they had no [gap in the transcript]

What you perceived remains. The eyes as organs of the physical world fade.

We see from this that people are wrong about what they call real. What appears as the effect of the processes is precisely what is real, lasting. Thus, through its organs, which it receives from time to time, the being draws the fruits from the different worlds, which it then takes with it. That is why the Greeks had beautiful symbols in the mysteries: They called the soul bees because the soul gathers the honey from the worlds and lays it down at the altar of the Eternal.

Why do the initiates use such images for the people? Does it have any value? Everything that is a myth is an outer garment for deeply inner truths.

How will we work on the statues more easily? Will we first work on the rough image in the block of stone or start with the finest execution? I think the first. The priests of different times acted according to this principle. They said [gap in transcript]

I instill in this soul a figurative idea that people do not understand at all. But it prepares his mind so that he can perceive the pure truth later. This had value as long as the priests were so imbued with reincarnation.

Back to the main idea: the beings take from the worlds what they need for their organs. For us: the physical, soul and spiritual worlds, of which we are composed. Man lives in these three worlds, the physical, astral and mental, and is therefore a threefold being.

Above the spiritual and below the physical, there are other worlds in which humans do not live directly, but other beings do. Let us imagine that these beings, which are only soul and spirit, are two-tiered for us. Such beings are called devas, who are not incarnated in the physical world, whose lowest form of existence is the astral. Myths have treated the knowledge of such beings allegorically, either by making them appear in fiery clouds. But we also find in myths that they appear in the form of animals - Zeus.

The animal often represents an astral being because it expresses the passionate more clearly than the human. This therefore corresponds to an astral reality, but is not to be thought of in the physical sense in the ordinary sense; rather, the people to whom it appeared were in a trance for the moment.

Besides these, there are other entities that are only physical-spiritual, lacking the spiritual. They are not animals, because with their generic character they belong to the spiritual; their generic soul belongs to the devachan. There are such entities that have no spiritual expression at all. It is only possible to reach them if you are not dependent on spiritual expression. I would have to be clairvoyant in the astral plane to perceive their astral essence. The earth is much more populated than one would think. A being lives in every rock and tree, but they do not express themselves because they have no spiritual expression. They are called elemental beings.

Man only perceives their effects when they manifest themselves to him, as it seems, by chance.

There are devas that have natures that are above the spiritual, and elemental beings that are below the physical. But they are none of our concern. These have organs that belong to the same worlds as we do. The devas do not perform acts that directly belong to the sensual world, so we do not perceive them; the elementary beings have no organs that can express themselves spiritually, so they are not there for humans.

In every church window, in every saga, in every folk building, in the ideas of everyday life in the Middle Ages, we can find the expression of deep truths. Poems that are not understood today are born out of the spirit of deepest wisdom. The material of “Heinrich von der Aue” was also taken from the circle of European initiates. The “Poor Henry”. Nowhere is it indicated that one is dealing with theosophical poetry; least of all did G. von H. know.

Heinrich von der Aue is a noble servant on the large estate of Aue in Swabia. He is an exceptionally capable knight in all worldly matters, but does not care much about things that go beyond the worldly. Therefore, he was punished with an illness called: Miselsucht - a leprosy that was considered incurable. All German doctors – and in those days they were doctors who healed with the help of spiritual powers – had given up on Heinrich von der Aue; only a master in Salerno had offered the prospect of salvation. A pure maiden must sacrifice her life. But he does not believe this; he realizes that it is the punishment for his worldly knighthood. He gives away his possessions and withdraws to a farm, where he is cared for by the daughter. She decides to sacrifice herself for him; he travels with her to Salerno. Then he realizes that it must not be, and would rather remain ill. But the sufficient sacrifice is not physical death, but the will, the joyful, spiritual will.

One principle was adopted by all poets. One should keep the measure, the harmony. 'Diumaasze'. A theosophical principle often expresses it: It does not depend on the external success, but on the right will. 'Who' - says the poet - 'in the mind strives for purity and nobility and wants the right, finds balance and honor.' – the bliss that emanates from the sixth principle. Through such words, Heinrich von der Aue implies that he has striven for something deeper. Everything he has written breathes the same spirit.

“Erek and Enita” describes how the search is on for moderation, how love arises from uniqueness and harmony from disharmony. Erek marries Enita. He is a bold knight who stipulates that his wife never warns him of danger. But harmony arises from the trials.

Iwein marries the daughter of a giant, but leaves her a year after the wedding because Gawain advises him not to 'get lost', not to become lazy and careless. He goes away for a year to pass tests, promises to come back, but does not, and loses the favor of his wife and his mind. He is saved by fighting lions and dragons. Seventeen years of wandering.

Only through spiritual knighthood can one attain the ability to exercise spiritual rule. In the legends, the higher, purer soul is always symbolized by a female soul; the higher consciousness is represented as the virgin feminine. Through his pure higher soul, which knows what love actually is, through the Master of Salerno, who points out to him how the higher spiritual connects with him through sacrifice.

What is misery for someone who knows what the spiritual and the physical actually are? We know that in earlier developments, man was a higher animal, only earthly development is there to put manas into kama. Basically, all beings in our development partake of this kama-manasic nature. In the animal, manas is not in the head, it is directed by manas. In the various kingdoms, the laws of wisdom come to light. This was not yet the case on the moon, which was only enveloped in an atmosphere of wisdom.

It would be an irregularity on earth if a new kama were grafted directly onto kama itself. If a being lived on kama, it would be the life relationship of the moon. There are such things on earth: they are parasites, insects that live on other creatures. And in the plant world there is mistletoe, a parasite that draws nourishment from already existing life. What the Kama root needs to live is what remained from the moon epoch. Mistletoe remained behind, only stunted, and must live parasitically to complete its development.

Hence the construction of insects, which are often in a horn shell, came into earthly development unfinished and [gap in the transcript]. Animals with an exoskeleton are those that are latecomers from the lunar epoch. It is therefore understandable that mistletoe plays such a role in ancient myths and legends. It is associated with those [...] and who are therefore still attached to the moon, to the Kamic, which was justified in the past.

In the saga, the beings that cause evil, connect their urges with the Kamic, are associated with mistletoe in the most spiritual way. [Baldur] is killed by mistletoe, which stems from an earlier epoch. If it extends into our epoch, it will bring about destruction. Earthly Kama must be ruled by Manas. Life on Earth is being destroyed by the lunar parasites. This is why the devil is called the lord of the flies.

If man himself abandons himself too much to Kama in earthly development, he grafts Kama onto Kama onto Kama and then becomes disharmonious within himself. This disharmony can be seen in the disease that breaks the measure. He is afflicted by the addiction that underlies this plant. Those who abandon themselves to the passions remain stuck in what belongs to the lunar. This damming up of the wave of life produces the disease of misery.

Those who do not strive for spiritual enlightenment experience a stagnation in their whole life. This cannot be understood by a physical doctor, only by someone who knows the connection between all planes. When the dammed up wave of life is lifted, when selfishness is truly sacrificed, then healing occurs.

Iwein is also a deeply symbolic piece of writing. Here again a female being represents the higher self. In this case it is the daughter of a giant, a race preceding humanity. The fusion of man with nature, as well as with [gap in transcript], was the gigantism. At the beginning of his development, Iwein is still close to this original development. He must now awaken Manas within himself. Manas was originally a gift of the gods, connected with the soul. Now he loses the higher gift in order to regain it as inner human intellect. When he reconciles with the higher self, he gains it, but by freeing the lion from the dragon, that is, from selfishness, from the wisdom that is directed towards the worldly.

It is wonderful when we consider the Mithras mysteries: their seven degrees. The fourth degree is the lion. When the fourth principle – lion – awakens in the higher sense, it strives towards the fifth and wants to be freed from the third, the dragon.

These poems arose from tremendous depths; it takes until the sixteenth century for them to surface. With the Copernican revolution, poetry becomes more secularized. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there is tremendous esoteric depth.

These Monday gatherings are intended to develop into truly intimate gatherings of our Theosophical community. Those present should speak as much as possible. I believe that this is the best way to enable a real discussion, with questions and answers from the group.

I would like to talk about apocalypses because this topic is suitable for leading more and more into the whole current that we call theosophical. When we talk about apocalypses, we will have to discuss all kinds of deeper, theosophical questions. Today, only a brief introduction will be given. We will then also have the opportunity to talk about a wide range of topics.

Of all the apocalypses, the best known is the secret revelation of John, which can be found at the end of the New Testament. There are a great many interpretations of this apocalypse. If you delve a little deeper into these interpretations, you will find that they often go very deeply into theology; but some are also very shallow. I myself will try to introduce you to the Apocalypse of John from a mystical point of view and then also to other apocalypses.

You might wonder why I am touching on this topic. However, the audience should be aware that we will be delving deeply into theosophy, touching on profound theosophical questions, and we would hardly find words if, in connection with this topic, the basic questions and basic goals were to be discussed in detail.

When speaking about such a lofty topic as the Apocalypse, it must be assumed that the main basic concepts of theosophical knowledge and theosophical goals are in place, and that you are convinced that Theosophy has a place in the world and that it not only has a general human but also a good scientific basis. You cannot talk about apocalypses if you still doubt whether Theosophy is superstition or real knowledge. We need to be clear about this fundamental question. The questions that are part of preparing the ground for Theosophy will all be touched upon. I will not only give the basic concepts of Theosophy, but the related questions will also be discussed. So, by talking about apocalypses, I would like to assume that the basis of the Theosophical worldview is generally given.

What does it mean to talk about apocalypses? First of all, I would just like to note that an apocalypse is a very specific way of looking at the world. You see the world in the form of an apocalypse. The one who can express an apocalypse himself has reached a certain point of view. You can read the apocalypse of others and you will learn very deep truths from it. But one cannot, without having reached a certain level of realization, utter what is contained in an apocalypse. There have been apocalypses among all peoples and at all times. We too, in Theosophy, have apocalypses.

Who can now speak in terms of apocalypses? I will answer this question, and that will lead us deeper into the essence of the apocalypses than a definition. The path of knowledge is prescribed for us; we are told how to come to knowledge and thereby to real spiritual effectiveness. Perhaps you have followed the stages one has to go through to enter and follow the path. You know that one has to develop very specific qualities in order to gain the freedom of vision that takes us away from what is merely sensually perceived and allows us to glimpse into the spiritual world. To do this, it is necessary for the human being to learn to distinguish between the 'eternal' and the 'temporal', to direct their gaze not at the temporal, not at the passing, but at the eternal, at what remains, so that they can then change their whole perception of the world around them, namely that certain things that are extremely important to the everyday person become unimportant to them, and other things gain in importance. What the everyday person finds important, such as the satisfaction of desires and everything that our self-interest dictates to us, must become unimportant. What must become important is what we have in mind as the eternal goal of humanity. We must have a sense of the ideal, of that which cannot be determined according to all possible advantages, but from the insight that it is about the human being, for the sake of the human being. If we have a sense of the ideal, we must also develop the sense that we learn to love it. The ideal is tremendously valuable. How many can sincerely look into their hearts and say that they truly love the ideal as one loves a child or a loved one? The ideal is far too intangible for people to grasp. But we must learn to love the intangible, that which exists only in the mind.

Then another quality we have to develop is “thought control”. We must not let our thoughts drift to and fro, but must practice controlling them so that we are able to hold on to a thought for as long as necessary to gain very specific knowledge through it and to become clear in a certain way through it. Man must realize that thoughts usually control him. To control thoughts means to master thoughts. We must not let ourselves be carried away by this or that urge to do this or that action. We must be given a sure direction. We must control ourselves only through the center within ourselves.

The third thing is that we acquire a certain even-tempered attitude towards the events of everyday life, which usually make people either euphoric or sad. We must have a certain “even-temperedness” both towards events that lift us up to heaven and towards those that plunge us into the deepest sorrow. Only by maintaining our composure throughout events can we find the way to judge things perceptively.

Then we must develop what we call 'tolerance'. This is a word that is easy to pronounce but means much more than is usually thought. How often in life do we condemn without asking why this or that person has come to this or that action. We must always ask: how and why? We must not be carried away to criticize. We must understand, understand everything in the broadest sense. If we develop this attitude, we will enter into the state of mind that kindles the life of knowledge in us. Do not think that the mind has no influence on the life of knowledge. Today, people overestimate the one-sided intellect and underestimate the qualities that lie deeper in the soul. They do not believe at all that these are the things that lead to knowledge. You can be a great scholar, you can have great knowledge and still not have free judgment. It would be quite easy for a wise man to feel superior to a child in his simplicity. But it would be quite wrong for him to give in to this sentiment. The wise man rejects the thought of being wiser than a child. Those who insist that they are more understanding and clever than others can never become wise. Those who accept the judgment of others with equanimity can become wise, can learn to understand by stepping back and judging from the perspective of the other. The fact that they understand the simple – even the simplest – is uplifting and useful for real progress and is a result of their tremendous tolerance.

A further quality must then be developed, which in Theosophy is called “faith”. Those who believe that they have come to a conclusion with their knowledge will not progress. The wise man must always be in the mood to realize that he actually knows very little and that every moment can teach him something completely new, that every expression of life can be a revelation to him. The one who truly walks the path of knowledge takes it so far that he says to himself: I may experience something in the next minute that throws everything I have believed and assumed so far overboard. In ordinary life, one will not take this to the extreme, but in the moment when one approaches anything in search of knowledge, one must really take it so far as to give up belief in one's previous knowledge. The wise man will never say: 'That cannot be', but will say: 'Everything is possible'. Through what I already know, I must never allow a judgment to arise about the possibility or impossibility of anything. The belief in the possibility of progressing to ever new revelations is a quality that the pathfinder must develop.

Then there is a quality that comes by itself, a quality that is called 'objectivity' or 'balance'. This helps us to avoid the pitfalls of life that condemn us to proclaim an apparent truth everywhere. This balance is not just a sum of everything else. Those who want to become wise must remain in balance; they must not let themselves be driven off course.

Once these qualities have been developed within us, the highest that can be attained at the preliminary stage of development comes, namely that man has the 'longing' to be truly free.

The theosophical movement wants to liberate people by speaking with universal tolerance of that which can apply to all people at all times.

This is what the pathfinder develops. When he has developed these qualities to a certain degree, then he is ready for what is called discipleship.

Then comes the moment when he has a great experience of tremendous significance: from this point on, he receives impressions from the spiritual world, from a completely different world, from a world that lies behind our world and of which our world is only the effect. He enters the world of the spiritual. He then looks at the world from the other side. What we call space and time no longer apply to him. It makes no difference to him that he is living in this particular incarnation. He could just as easily be living in a different incarnation. He could have lived thousands of years ago – when he looks at what he is now seeing, he would see it in the same way. He could even be living in the future and would still experience everything in the same way.

This is the first level of discipleship. Such a person is called a homeless person; he is removed from the Heimav. In return, he also says things that no longer refer to this or that place, to this or that people, to this or that race, but he says things that refer to all races, to all times and all peoples.

The first stage enables him to see only what is nearest. At this stage, he only sees what belongs to a so-called “root race”. The disciple, then, sees what relates to our present root race, back to the time when the Atlanteans disappeared.

Then the second stage of discipleship begins, which is not attained through theory, not through concepts and ideas, but through a real insight. The Theosophical worldview teaches that man does not live only once in the world, but many times, that he embodies himself again and again and that his actions are related. The individual lives are connected by cause and effect. This can be seen by observing life. It is also possible to understand this concept in theory. Many followers of Theosophy are still at the stage of believing reincarnation and karma to be true only as a conceptual and intellectual realization. However, the second stage of discipleship has the knowledge of the truth of reincarnation and karma. The disciple does not suspect the truth of reincarnation and karma – he knows it.

Now comes the third stage of discipleship. Re-embodiment is not an eternal thing. Before the middle of the Lemurian period, there was not yet what we call reincarnation, and after the middle of the sixth root race, this kind of reincarnation will cease again. Another kind of life and re-embodiment will then be there. Up to the middle of the sixth root race, man will be reincarnated. Reincarnation will then depend on the will of the person; today it is independent of it. We can say there is a first moment before reincarnation and a last moment after it. Before that, man was one who did not incarnate, and after that he will be one who no longer reincarnates. To see beyond the realm of reincarnation is the attribute of the third level of discipleship. This disciple, this chela at the third level, is called “swan”. When he looks at the first and the last, that is, at that which is higher than all reincarnation, then he is able to write and speak of apocalypses. What is contained in any apocalypse initially comes from those initiates who not only overlook the time of reincarnation, but see from the first to the last. To show how man has come into this reincarnation and how he comes out of it again, that is the task of every apocalypse. It has to describe a distant past and a distant future, and in doing so it also encompasses the present. In the Apocalypse of John you will find a description of the seven sub-races of our fifth root race, because what is said of the seven churches refers to the seven sub-races of the fifth root race. The admonitions that the apocalyptic John addresses to the churches are the admonitions that the chela John calls out to the individual sub-races. Each sub-race is connected with a very specific constellation in heaven. Therefore, there are seven stars that represent the seven angels: they guide the genii of the seven sub-races. Then one is led to the first and to the last. The first is the human being who stands before reincarnation, and the last is he who still stands after having overcome reincarnation.

John was in a so-called initiation shell. He also says that he was in spirit. And what is revealed there is nothing other than the inspiration of a chela in the third degree of discipleship; it is an apocalypse of the swan. The swan is the one who establishes the connection between the most highly inspired and man. This is expressed in the most important legends.

So the disciple becomes homeless at the first level. Those who have become swans can attain the higher revelations. They are those who come into our world, but you are not allowed to ask them their name because they come from a world beyond. This is expressed in a great, powerful allegory that also has a deeply mystical meaning. It is a very profound truth that is expressed in the Lohengrin saga; through Lohengrin, who comes with the swan, who was thus a disciple - a chela - of the third degree. Great truths are found with him. Only he who understands the saga of Lohengrin understands world history from the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth century.

Now I have explained to you the origin of who can speak apocalyptically, who can create a picture of the world, independent of space and time. We will also talk about the distant past, the present, but also the future. This will become clear when we talk about the apocalypse revealed by Theosophy. There we will see what man can set as a great goal, because it really is a great goal.

From the question and answer session

The materialist says that we follow animality to the stage where it has become human, and now we follow the urge present in man at a certain higher level.

But this is not based on knowledge, it is based on materialistic dogma. You do not follow the laws of nature by dogmatically limiting these laws of nature to a very specific point and saying: so far and no further. You can only follow the laws if you recognize them. You have to combine the knowledge of the laws with following them.

An example of this: the religious person will not merely rely on the fact that he says: I do not lie because it puts me at a disadvantage or makes me contemptible in the eyes of my fellow human beings. He is much more convinced that lying has a broader meaning, that it is something that goes against the divine order of the world and that it brings its punishment, its effects, with it. If you support the truth, you are supporting the advancement of a certain development. If you describe events differently than they are, you do the same as if you were to suppress a plant germ: you withhold a very specific direction of development. This does not seem so bad as long as you are not aware that you can also withhold something in spiritual growth. But the occultist says: a lie is a murder. What would have developed as a living being is killed by the lie.

The division of the sexes is related to birth and death.

The second stage of discipleship resolves doubt and makes superstition impossible.

The investigation of the reincarnation of another human being must be completely impersonal. If the researcher is asked, he can get involved.

In answer to the question of which student would be able to read in the Akasha Chronicle, I would like to reply: anyone who is ready to become a disciple can read in the Akasha Chronicle. There are two types of reading in the Akasha Chronicle: the actual reading is possible as soon as one becomes a disciple at all. But one must first learn to spell. The Akasha Chronicle throws mirror images into the astral plane. It is located at the boundary between the rupa and arupa levels. But you can, for example, find Caesar's war campaign in the astral plane as a reflection of the records in the Akasha Chronicle.